Black and White and Red All Over
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: Esmond Roseburrow's discoveries into the properties of whale oil changed the whaling industry forever, and the Empire of the Isles with it. Sealing however, remained mostly unchanged. For some however, that was cold comfort.


**Black and White and Red All Over**

"What's black and white and red-"

"A newspaper."

"Damn! Caught me again!"

Eber didn't respond to his brother's attempts to cheer him up. Bar the initial answer he gave of course, but maybe by being pre-emptive, he could pre-empt any other poor attempts at humour he made.

"So, um, did you hear about the rat who tried to cross the road?"

"Yes."

"And the empresses's new clothes?"

"You mean that story about the empress who thought she was wearing clothes, but really wasn't, and no-one told her because of boobies?"

"Um…"

"Yeah, you told me. And my version is better than yours."

Lloyd didn't have an answer for that. Not for now at least. So all that was left was the sound of the waves, oars, and the cries of seals on Rakiura.

"So, anyway, there was this one time when I-"

Eber closed his ears to the world. He made a mental note to make that his first resort rather than his last one.

Lloyd's incessant yammering faded as he cast his mind back. He hated being out here, west of Gristol, as much as he disliked being east of the island or on the island itself. He'd disliked whaling. He loathed the monolithic, heartless industry whaling had become, and the industrial revolution it was driving. The same revolution that had put him and numerous others out of work as independent whalers could no longer compete with the trawler fleets. It was work he'd hated, but anything to put food on the table.

"Keep rowing you little maggot! You think I'm paying you to lolly-gaggle?!"

Gritting his teeth, Eber obeyed the shipman's orders. Lloyd had dragged him here, he reflected. Dragged him out west, to switch whaling for sealing. Even if sea oil was worthless nowadays, their pelts were still in high demand and rising – more purchasing power, at least for those who benefitted from the industrial change sweeping the Empire.

"Now move you sea urchins!"

The boat landed, and the sealers disembarked, Eber among them. Some carried clubs, some carried harpoons, some of them even carried flintlocks. Different, Lloyd had called it from whaling. Less dangerous. More humane. Right now, the only difference Eber could cite was that the hunt was going to take place on land rather than on the sea.

The sealers moved up the beach, if the pebble and rock-strewn shoreline could be called a beach. Eber had always considered beaches to have sand, not unstable rock pits that felt like there was a guiding intelligence wanting him to break his ankle.

_Maybe there is. Maybe the island doesn't want its seals hunted._

He shook the thought away. Partly because it sounded ridiculous. Partly because he could already see the seals in the distance. Creatures he was about to kill. And if there was one thing whaling had taught him, it was to never anthropomorphize animals.

"Get 'em lads."

Not that the shipman was giving the sealers a chance to. They moved forward. The seals stared. Lloyd had told him earlier that this was a new hunting ground for their ship – they always tried to vary their territories, giving the seals time to reproduce, and also, to not expose them to hunters so much that they automatically registered them as predators.

But to the seals' credit, Eber supposed, they did know to start heading for the water when the first shots were fired.

The sealers ran forward, Eber among them. It was like a waking dream. Shots were fired, wounding the creatures. It was these that the sealers closed in on first, impaling with harpoons or beating with clubs. Some of the braver (or more reckless) hunters went for the unwounded animals. Some were bitten. Some fell down. But mostly, they took the creatures down.

_Not whaling…_

And Eber joined them. He impaled his prey. He killed his prey. He watched as the light of life left his prey's eyes, and he kicked it off his harpoon with his boot. He watched as its blood seeped between the stones. He watched as Lloyd picked up one of those stones a few feet away and bashed one of the creatures' skulls in.

_Not whaling…_

It wasn't. Whales had a chance back in the day. But this wasn't hunting. This was slaughter. Like cattle. Only there was the veneer of it not being livestock. And the feeling of the hunter…it coursed through him. Emboldened him. Sickened him.

And then it was over.

Two dozen seals dead. Two thirds of their herd. And Eber stood there. Watching the blood flow. Imagining the creature's fur on a fellow man or woman. Recalling that if not for the whales being slaughtered to the east, their oil would be used as well.

"Heh, nice job," he heard Lloyd say. "Told the captain you'd fit right in."

Eber kept staring. And he was reminded of what his brother had asked him.

"Eber?"

_What's white and black and red all over?  
_"You okay?"

_White eyes. Black fur. Red blood._

"Eber?"

He didn't answer.

Because the answer to his brother's earlier question was one he wished he'd never reached.


End file.
